New incidents in front of Government building; over 60,000 protesters

Bucharest, Aug 10 /Agerpres/ - Several conflicts occurred around 21:00 hrs between the protesters in Victoria Square, in front of the Government building, and the gendarmes. In front of the Government building there are around 60,000 protesters, according to sources.

Several protesters were aggressive while people were chanting the national anthem and the gendarmes intervened with tear gas.

A part of those present left the area, returning later while chanting "Thieves, thieves!", and "We're not leaving".

"None of the claims these people have, I'm sure, can be resolved by acts of violence. I, for one, do not understand this way of manifesting. My colleagues were required to use individual means of protection to stop the persons committing such acts. The intervention was difficult, because said persons, the violent groups, used honest people demonstrating peacefully as shields, in the sense that they left them in contact with us and they, from the back or from inside the crowd have thrown various objects and used all means to provoke reactions from the law enforcement officers," the spokesperson of the Bucharest Gendarmerie, Georgian Enache, stated on Friday evening.

On a building near the Government building messages are being projected such as "We are the people", and "No violence".

The head of the communication service of the Romanian Gendarmerie, Marius Militaru, also launched an appeal to women and children to withdraw to areas where no violence is occurring, as well as to peaceful protesters to delimitate themselves from the violent groups, so that the gendarmes can intervene to remove them from the crowd.

The call comes as the Bucharest Emergency Services Inspectorate informed that 62 persons were granted medical attention between 20:00 hrs and 21:00 hrs, bringing the total tally to 172. Nine persons were transported to hospital, two of them gendarmes. AGERPRES (EN - editor: Razvan-Adrian Pandea)